Hardwareversand - First Build Questions

Daawaa

Hi all,

I was browsing around the threads here in search for a few questions I have regarding buying from the German based supplier, but couldn't really find answers I was looking for.

First off, some details on my build. This will be a workstation that will be used for 3D graphics (Maya, Max,ZBrush), video editing (AE,Nuke) and image editing. I have been doing a lot of research and this is where I am at:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£433.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 CPU Cooler (£62.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 PRO ATX LGA2011 Motherboard (£198.61 @ Dabs)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£64.99 @ Dabs)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£55.49 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Intel 335 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£143.14 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card (£220.99 @ Dabs)
Case: Cooler Master HAF XM (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£94.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair Professional Gold 750W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£134.53 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: Asus BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer (£46.38 @ Aria PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.94 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1526.04

I've just used partpicker as I like the format above I hope to buy from HWVS and my basket looks like:



It would be great to hear from you guys that have first hand experience buying from these guys or indeed if anyone has any recommendations/concerns on what I have chosen for this build.

My questions are:


- PSU. Are there any potential problems with the the Euro plug? Is an adaptper sufficient or should I obtain an Irish three plug for the PSU?


- VAT. There were snipets of info here and on the HWVS site about what VAT you pay on the order. Judging from my basket total, is that the final amount I will pay or will there be an addition added tax made to the total?


- They build it. I will go for this option and am 99% certain that my parts are compatible. If they find that certain parts are not..what happens? Any experiences with getting them to build it would be great to hear..

Any feedback would be great!

Thanks a million.

D

BloodBath

Total beast of a system and good choices for the most part but probably overkill in some areas. Do you really need 6 cores/12 threads? Would a 3770k not be enough? You could save €300 by going for a 3770k.

Made some changes to better parts at similar price points.

Item|Price
Intel Core i7-3930K Retail, ohne Kühler, LGA2011|€509.62
ASRock X79 Extreme6, Sockel LGA2011, ATX|€193.15
16GB-Kit Patriot Viper3 BLACK MAMBA, 1600MHZ, CL 9-9-9-24|€89.70
Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme|€74.99
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti Windforce 2X, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€249.77
Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256GB SATA 6Gb/s|€195.74
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€81.89
Thermaltake Chaser MK-I, ohne Netzteil|€107.00
BitFenix Spectre PRO 200mm Lüfter Blue LED - black|€18.85
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX750, 750 Watt|€129.78
LG BH16NS40 Blu-ray Brenner Retail|€74.39
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit SB-Version Englisch|€81.61
Rechner - Zusammenbau|€20.00
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1845.48

Is there any reason you went for the 660ti? Is CUDA important to you? Is OpenCL any use to you?

I assume you are overclocking as you could save a lot of money here if you aren't.

PSU. Are there any potential problems with the the Euro plug? Is an adaptper sufficient or should I obtain an Irish three plug for the PSU?

An adapter is fine.

VAT. There were snipets of info here and on the HWVS site about what VAT you pay on the order. Judging from my basket total, is that the final amount I will pay or will there be an addition added tax made to the total?

The basket total is the final amount + shipping costs of €18.99.

They build it. I will go for this option and am 99% certain that my parts are compatible. If they find that certain parts are not..what happens? Any experiences with getting them to build it would be great to hear..

I'd be scared of having them ship it pre-built with that beast of a cooler on there.

Daawaa

Thanks BB,

BloodBath wrote: »

Is there any reason you went for the 660ti? Is CUDA important to you? Is OpenCL any use to you?

The graphics card was a bit of a grey area for me out of all the components in terms of finding one that will be of utmost use for my build. After trawling through a few forums relating to 3D programs and trying to steer away from the overpriced quadros I found that the 660 ti would suit me.
What would you recommend for what I need this build for? Bear in mind that first priority will be for 3D/Video editing and modern gaming will not be compulsory.

BloodBath wrote: »

I assume you are overclocking as you could save a lot of money here if you aren't.

That thought did cross my mind about the d14 and transport actually. Initially I wont be overclocking but I wanted a rig that would allow in the future if needs be, and this cooler is topping reviews everywhere I look. I was going to build myself in the beginning but I saw that they build for 20E, but this is subject to change also.


In terms of your suggestions I think I will stick with the original selection for the case, CP Cooler and ram (based off d14 cooler)

I may do some research into your suggestion for the Mobo, optical drive and Mech Hard Drive.

Furthermore is that case fan you have included very important?

Many Thanks

BloodBath

In that case the 660ti is fine but the 7950 is a better performing card for a little more. In either case go with that gigabyte model over evga as the cooler is far better.

The D14 is a great cooler. The thermalright silver arrow extreme version is better performing but also louder. For the best of both worlds you could get this which outperforms both and is quieter.

The ram I chose costs the same and has lower timings meaning it's better/faster. Alternatively these which are cheaper again and have the lower timings also but aren't low profile like the others.

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/1600+Low+Voltage/66614/16GB-Kit+G.Skill+RipJaws-X+PC3-12800U+CL9.article

The case fan was intended for the case I listed to balance out the airflow.

You could save some money on the psu as well and go for this.

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/600+-+700+Watts/69310/EVGA+SuperNOVA+NEX650G+650W+ATX+2.3+80%2BGold.article

750 is overkill. Even if you overclocked both the g-card and processor to high levels the system would use maybe 450w tops.

Daawaa

BloodBath wrote: »

The D14 is a great cooler. The thermalright silver arrow extreme version is better performing but also louder. For the best of both worlds you could get this which outperforms both and is quieter.

I was looking at this cooler, but its a bit pricier and Id prefer to stick with an air cooler ftm.

BloodBath wrote: »

The ram I chose costs the same and has lower timings meaning it's better/faster. Alternatively these which are cheaper again and have the lower timings also but aren't low profile like the others.

I'm going to take your advice and get more bang for my buck with the Patriot Viper 3 RAM. It is compatible with the D14 aswel.

BloodBath wrote: »

You could save some money on the psu as well and go for this.

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/600+-+700+Watts/69310/EVGA+SuperNOVA+NEX650G+650W+ATX+2.3+80%2BGold.article

750 is overkill. Even if you overclocked both the g-card and processor to high levels the system would use maybe 450w tops.

Good call, going to take your advice here too. That handle at the back of it looks a bit mad though. Got good enough reviews too.

Serephucus

Is there any reason in particular you want to stick with air? An AIO watercooler like that will outperform an air cooler easily, especially with 2011, as it's such a big (physically) processor, and doesn't suffer from any of the heat dispersion problems that Ivy does.

(If BloodBath and I are both agreeing on water for once, you know it's a good idea. :P)

Daawaa

I was thinking about an AIO watercooler in the early stages, definitely! But through the different forums and reviews I saw people opt for the D14 in terms of quality of performance and durabilty.

Some things that kept popping up on the corsair hydro coolers was noise and durability.

Judging from your signature you must have some good first hand advice

What is a water cooler like for
- power consumption
- durability
- maintenance

Also the price was a factor in not currently opting for it..

BloodBath

If you are going for an overclocked 6 core HT cpu then you really want all the cooling you can get.

I'd spend the extra for the H110. It's only 35 db which is close to silent. Some of the other corsair coolers were louder.

Serephucus

Well I only ever used a H50, and switched to a custom loop pretty quickly afterwards, so I don't have recent experience, but there's no maintenance of any sort with it, not sure what you mean there. The H50 I had was great, though I had (and still have, with newer models to, if I'm remembering right) heard about pump noise, though I suppose if you're unlucky Corsair would replace it pretty quickly for you. The power consumption is negligible. Most AIO units use 1-2W pumps, so that's all the extra we're talking about.

I passed my H50 onto a friend a couple of years ago. As far as I know it's still running fine. That's about all I can tell you about it.

BloodBath

Looking at some more benchmarks the Nh-d14 and the 110 are identical in both cooling and noise levels so stick with the Noctua.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/corsair_h110_review,13.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/corsair_h110_review,11.html

That is a 3770k in the test though. The h110 may well perform better with the 6 core ivy.

Daawaa

BloodBath wrote: »

Looking at some more benchmarks the Nh-d14 and the 110 are identical in both cooling and noise levels so stick with the Noctua.

This was something I've noticed in me travels through different benchmark sites. I might stick with the D14 for now and if I find I need more cooling power down the line then I'll get one.

BB: Why did you opt for those specific Motherboards and HardDrive in your earlier post? Any specific specs on them?

BloodBath

ASrock boards tend to be more feature rich for the same price or less than the likes of ASUS. I just noticed the ram supported on the ASRock is ECC compared to non-ECC on the ASUS. I don't know if this means it only accepts ECC memory or if it will take non ECC also.

The ram is good low profile ram with good timings for that price but it's non ECC like most ram. I'd look into whether that board supports non ECC or go with the Asus board.

If you want to make use of the quad channel memory you will need 4 sticks of ram as well. You could go for 4x4gb sticks. This will mean you're max down the line will be 32gb though but you will hardly ever need more than this will you?

Daawaa

BloodBath wrote: »

ASrock boards tend to be more feature rich for the same price or less than the likes of ASUS. I just noticed the ram supported on the ASRock is ECC compared to non-ECC on the ASUS. I don't know if this means it only accepts ECC memory or if it will take non ECC also.

This is something I was not aware of previously, going to look into this now as to what type will be better for my system. The p9x79 is non ECC and so are the Viper 3s so it is compatible this far. Lot of people are saying the ECC does effect performance and is typically used for network systems. So I may opt with the non-ECC

BloodBath wrote: »

If you want to make use of the quad channel memory you will need 4 sticks of ram as well. You could go for 4x4gb sticks. This will mean you're max down the line will be 32gb though but you will hardly ever need more than this will you?

If I use 2X8GB on this board will there be an issue with performance? I chose 2X8 for the mo with intention of putting in two more sticks of 8 in the future. I will be using some video/image editing software so as far as I am aware it will use whatever RAM is thrown at it (correct if Im wrong )

BloodBath

Quad channel would only be about 10% better in certain situations, where high memory bandwidth is needed, over dual channel so it's no big deal.

Daawaa

Just noticed something there on HWVS...Whats the difference between Retail/Reseller and Bulk (bar the price??)





Also question for Bloodbath...how did you create that template you posted originally with links to HWVS?

Daawaa

Here is an update at where I am at...

CPU: Intel i7 3930k (510,24)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 (74,99)
Motherboard: Asus P9x79 Pro (269,84)
Memory: 16GB-Kit Patriot Viper3 BLACK MAMBA (89,70)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s (59,00)
SSD: Intel SSD 520Series 240GB (229,00 )
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card (278,13 )
Case: Cooler Master HAF XM (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (104,38)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX650G 650W ATX 2.3 80+Gold (99,00)
Optical Drive: LG BH16NS40 Blu-ray Brenner Retail (74,83)
Shipping: (18,99)
Total: 1809,00

Daawaa

Ok Im gonna make the plunge!

Some last minute moments of paranoia on the following two points:

- Power Supply with Motherboard: The PSU states ATX 2.3 but the Mobo states ATX12V is this compatible?
- Power Supply with Case: I'm concerned about the handle at the back of this PSU and wheter it will fit at the back of the case


I think everything else is ok...but if you see anything let me know.

P.S I don't want to change any part if possible, I want to stick with this basket or else I'll never buy this rig



I just tried to select parts in partpicker with compatibility turned on, and had no flags. Is this a safe way to ensure compatibility?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£433.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 CPU Cooler (£62.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 PRO ATX LGA2011 Motherboard (£198.61 @ Dabs)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£163.80 @ Dabs)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.00 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Intel 520 Series Cherryville 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£186.29 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card (£241.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Cooler Master HAF XM (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£94.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£81.97 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£106.56 @ Aria PC)
Total: £1620.20
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-01 09:03 GMT+0000)

Serephucus

Just so you know, it comes out at basically the same price if you order everything from HWVS:

Item|Price
Intel Core i7-3930K Retail, ohne Kühler, LGA2011|€510.24
Noctua NH-D14 SE2011, Sockel LGA 2011|€74.99
ASUS P9X79 PRO, Sockel 2011, ATX, DDR3|€269.84
32GB-Kit Patriot Viper3 BLACK MAMBA, 1600MHZ, CL 10-10-10-27|€179.14
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 3 6GB/s|€62.18
Intel SSD 520Series 240GB bulk|€207.21
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti, 2048MB DDR5, PCI-Express|€256.22
Cooler Master HAF XM, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€104.38
EVGA SuperNOVA NEX650G 650W ATX 2.3 80+Gold|€99.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€120.74
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1903.92

Personally, I'd go with a 256GB M4. You save €30, and you get an extra 16GB space.

Daawaa

Thanks Serephucus,

Serephucus wrote: »

Just so you know, it comes out at basically the same price if you order everything from HWVS:

Oh yes,

I am ordering from them today, I just used PPicker to show my compatibility concern, do you reckon all these are functional?

Serephucus wrote: »

Personally, I'd go with a 256GB M4. You save €30, and you get an extra 16GB space.

I think I'll go with the Intel 240GB, I have been chopping and changing and was recommended this for performance.

Daawaa

Thanks to everyone for their input, I purchased these parts yesterday afternoon. So hoping to getting down to the hands on stuff by the end of next week.

I am however a bit concerned because I haven't received a confirmation as yet that they received my payment...even though the money has been taken from my account. I was reading through a few threads on here about payment to HWVS, and I am a bit worried that I never put in the intended purpose number sent by them when making the transfer on my 365online.

AFAIK they are open a full day on Saturdays so I was hoping to get a mail today, but no joy. I might ring up 365online tomorrow

marco_polo

Wouldn't worry about it, worst comes to worst it'll delay thing by a day or two if they can't match the payment.

Also international transfers aren't instant they can take a few working days to arrive at the destination account.

Daawaa

Yeah I was thinking that alright, maybe the bank deducts it instantly but it doesn't reach their account until later.

I am still a bit nervous about the intended purpose bit, so basically this was meant to used to connect the money transfer to the order. When I was doing the 365 there was a purpose box, but when I pasted the numbered code it didn't accept it.

There was however a comment box at the end...I probably shold have put it in there in hindsight

Tij da feen

Daawaa wrote: »

Yeah I was thinking that alright, maybe the bank deducts it instantly but it doesn't reach their account until later.

I am still a bit nervous about the intended purpose bit, so basically this was meant to used to connect the money transfer to the order. When I was doing the 365 there was a purpose box, but when I pasted the numbered code it didn't accept it.

There was however a comment box at the end...I probably shold have put it in there in hindsight

You should be okay. They're very unlikely to have any other orders with the exact same amount as your order. Also, yes, the bank instantly deduct the amount from you account but it won't reach their account for a few days.

Daawaa

I called up the 365 helpline just in case, and the operator informed me that the transfer hadn't been fully processed and probably won't be received until Wednesday. So I can relax a bit now:) And yes you're right the chances of two orders being the same amount is slim.

Daawaa

HEy,

Everything is sorted now...my order is with upc and should arrive by monday afternoon so the order went through fine. Ill post up the few proceedures and correspondence between me hwvs and ups soon.

I am going to buy the other bits like keyboard, monitor domestically. I was thinking argos/viking direct. I am thinking about a 24"monitor suitable for 3d/ vid editing work for a reasonable price. Any recommendations?

Daawaa

There is an option on the HWVS site under My Profile>OrderHistory>Order Number where you can see their status on where your order is...this is what mine looks like



You also get a payment confirmation email from HWVS with a UPS tracking identity where you can see the transit scanning info and where your delivery is.




This is very useful as you can pretty much track the delivery as it travels.

However there was a difference in info given on the weight of the delivery, where HWVS said the package was heavier than that of what UPS said.

I sent an email to HWVS to enquire and, like many people are saying on this forum about the german company, they were a bit slow in responding. But they did so and ensured that it was a typo and to check the delivery as everything should be in order. So tomorrow hopefully all will go well